I am literally hours into this now and it has become quite frustrating. It started with not even being able to run "emerge --oneshot portage" due to blocking problems, I finally got past that and went on to "emerge -uavD system". Lots of blocks there too, eventually I made it through a run after removing and updating a bunch of packages, but if I run "emerge -uavD system" again it wants to reinstall qtcore-4.8.4-r5:4, it keeps wanting to install it over and over (I have let it do it a few times now), plus it throws a warning about dependency conflicts...

The solution depends on the packages listed after "WARNING:" line.
From the pasted snippet, only following can be said:
- you can only have either dev-libs/libusb-compat or dev-libs/libusb:0
- in >=net-libs/libsoup-2.42, net-libs/libsoup and net-libs/libsoup-gnome were merged into a single package
- systemd...

The solution depends on the packages listed after "WARNING:" line.
From the pasted snippet, only following can be said:
- you can only have either dev-libs/libusb-compat or dev-libs/libusb:0
- in >=net-libs/libsoup-2.42, net-libs/libsoup and net-libs/libsoup-gnome were merged into a single package
- systemd...

Thank you for responding. I think I have resolved the libusb stuff now, I thought I had resolved the libsoup stuff but that one seems to keep coming back. I removed libsoup, then libsoup-gnome installed, but as I have slowly been installing stuff libsoup seems to keep coming back. The big problems I seem to have now are libsoup/libsoup-gnome and udev/systemd. I can not imagine that removing udev would be a good idea but I don't know how else to get systemd to install. I started what I thought was a simple update of my system about 11 hours ago now and my frustration level is through the roof, greatly increased by the fact that the forums went down for the last hour or so making it even harder to troubleshoot my issues (this would not be a big deal to me except that it too seems like an ongoing problem, the last two times I was trying to troubleshoot issues I ran into the same forum problems, unable to fetch a row or something).

Same story here, net-libs/libsoup-gnome has became part of net-libs/libsoup; thus, you can unmerge libsoup-gnome.

If you can't unmerge something, check what depends on it; you can do that with `emerge gentoolkit ; equery d CATEGORY/NAME`.

Ok, thanks for your help, I really appreciate it. I will be jumping back on this project later this afternoon and I will see if I can make any headway on it. I was looking at the systemd Gentoo wiki page and it does not seem to mention needing to unmerge udev before installing, was this documented somewhere that I simply missed? Do I have to follow all the other recommendations in that wiki link? The wiki says it is an "alternate" init system, is migrating to systemd required or optional? Thanks again.

They plan on documenting this for the upcoming GNOME 3.8 upgrade path; when you run ~ instead of stable, you are ahead in time of that documentation and therefore experience problems like this.

I decided to spend a few minutes on this before heading to work. I removed udev and that did seem to take care of the systemd/udev block but the libsoup issue is still causing lots of problems. Removing libsoup-gnome is no problem but it seems that many packages want to pull it back in still.
Here is what I am getting at the end of an emerge world now...

!!! Multiple package instances within a single package slot have been pulled
!!! into the dependency graph, resulting in a slot conflict:

net-libs/libsoup:2.4

(net-libs/libsoup-2.42.2::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) pulled in by
>=net-libs/libsoup-2.42.0:2.4[introspection?] required by (dev-libs/libgdata-0.13.4::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge)
(and 10 more with the same problem)

(net-libs/libsoup-2.40.3::gentoo, installed) pulled in by
~net-libs/libsoup-2.40.3[introspection?] required by (net-libs/libsoup-gnome-2.40.3::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge)

gnome-base/gnome-desktop:3

(gnome-base/gnome-desktop-3.8.3::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) pulled in by
>=gnome-base/gnome-desktop-3.7.90:3 required by (gnome-base/gnome-session-3.8.4::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge)
(and 2 more with the same problem)

(gnome-base/gnome-desktop-3.6.3::gentoo, installed) pulled in by
>=gnome-base/gnome-desktop-3.6.0.1:3/4=[introspection] required by (gnome-extra/gnome-tweak-tool-3.6.1-r1::gentoo, installed)
gnome-base/gnome-desktop:3/4= required by (media-gfx/gnome-font-viewer-3.6.2::gentoo, installed)
gnome-base/gnome-desktop:3/4= required by (gnome-extra/gnome-documents-3.8.3.1::gentoo, installed)
gnome-base/gnome-desktop:3/4= required by (www-client/epiphany-3.6.1::gentoo, installed)
(and 8 more with the same problems)

It may be possible to solve this problem by using package.mask to
prevent one of those packages from being selected. However, it is also
possible that conflicting dependencies exist such that they are
impossible to satisfy simultaneously. If such a conflict exists in
the dependencies of two different packages, then those packages can
not be installed simultaneously. You may want to try a larger value of
the --backtrack option, such as --backtrack=30, in order to see if
that will solve this conflict automatically.

For more information, see MASKED PACKAGES section in the emerge man
page or refer to the Gentoo Handbook.

* Error: The above package list contains packages which cannot be
* installed at the same time on the same system.

Anyway, thanks again for your help, I'm going to tear myself away from this now. I've been running unstable Gentoo for more than 10 years and while I have had some issues in the past, I don't think I have anything approaching the level of frustration this is causing. I'll jump back on it tonight.

Need some more information now, I think; what are you trying to do? Do you want GNOME 3.6 or GNOME 3.8? Or no GNOME at all? Are you accepting all ~ or are you mixing stable and ~? Do you do any (un)masks?

Need some more information now, I think; what are you trying to do? Do you want GNOME 3.6 or GNOME 3.8? Or no GNOME at all? Are you accepting all ~ or are you mixing stable and ~? Do you do any (un)masks?

I was not "trying" to do anything specifically except run an "emerge -uavD world" to make sure everything was up to date on my system. I am not mixing stable and ~, just running ~. I am at work now but I don't think I have any masks or unmasks (I'll have to double check that later). I am running Gnome, I think 3.6, it is possible that the "update world" I'm running wants to take me to 3.8 if that is the latest in ~, but I have specifically been trying to deal with all the blocking issues and did not yet look at the versions of gnome packages it wants to update, again I won't be able to check that until later this afternoon. Thanks for your help.

After that, when you upgrade again it will say they are masked and show you what is pulling them in (alternatively, you can use `equery d ...` on the package ATOM from gentoolkit instead of masking; what also helps is to pass the parameters --tree --unordered-display to emerge which might give you an indication in the tree what is pulling it in [bold packages are selected]) and if you keep repeating this should be able to get rid of 3.6, after then removing the old libsoup-gnome (leaving you with the newer libsoup which that is part of) and doing a world upgrade you should be on 3.8.

If in doubt or you are looking for faster responses, you can directly talk to me and others in #gentoo on the FreeNode IRC network.

After that, when you upgrade again it will say they are masked and show you what is pulling them in (alternatively, you can use `equery d ...` on the package ATOM from gentoolkit instead of masking; what also helps is to pass the parameters --tree --unordered-display to emerge which might give you an indication in the tree what is pulling it in [bold packages are selected]) and if you keep repeating this should be able to get rid of 3.6, after then removing the old libsoup-gnome (leaving you with the newer libsoup which that is part of) and doing a world upgrade you should be on 3.8.

If in doubt or you are looking for faster responses, you can directly talk to me and others in #gentoo on the FreeNode IRC network.

It sounds like I still have some real work cut out for me when I get home tonight. I will follow your suggestions and post my results back here. I'm starting to wonder if I would have been better off just blasting my system and starting a fresh install. The information regarding the IRC channel is very much appreciated, I had forgotten about that. Again, thank you very much for all your help.

There might be some way to cut it short; that is, if you remember you explicitly got 3.6 in one or another way or if you can find such thing back.

For instance, `grep 3.6 /var/lib/portage/world` might reveal something; also checking `grep -r 3.6 /etc/portage/` and `grep -r 3.8 /etc/portage/` might reveal something, you can also `grep gnome /var/lib/portage/world` and `grep -r gnome /etc/portage/` to see if there are any entries with specific versions blocking you from upgrading to GNOME 3.8.

But, if some random package explicitly wants it, you will need to walk the dependency tree in the reverse order to find that package. Although, I think you should be able to see that in `emerge -upvDN @world --tree --unordered-display` so if you paste that tree I might be able to point out what it is, unless you see it yourself already; it should basically be the first bold entries when you walk towards the root of the tree from any 3.6 package.

As you can see, there are various ways to troubleshoot this; what the right way is, I'll await your progress and outputs for...

I have not looked at Gnome 3.8 yet but I did go ahead and emerge systemd, it did install now that I uninstalled udev, but I am starting to wonder what I am getting myself into here. When I look at the Gentoo systemd install guide (http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/systemd/systemd-install-guide.xml) it mentions needing to change my Grub configuration, and it starts out with the warning "Please note this guide is incomplete ATM."

If someone were to simply use portage to update their ~ system and this new systemd thing gets pulled in, does it require a lot of additional configuration, including possible kernel updates for that system to be bootable again? If so that does not seem to be made clear anywhere during the upgrade process.

The messages I got from systemd after installing it are...

Quote:

* Messages for package sys-apps/systemd-206-r3:

* CONFIG_FANOTIFY: is not set when it should be.
* CONFIG_IPV6: is not set when it should be.
* Please check to make sure these options are set correctly.
* Failure to do so may cause unexpected problems.

Those looks like kernel settings but the systemd install guide above does not mention exactly what kernel configurations need to be made. Should I be following the instructions at https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Systemd perhaps?

No, you can still boot into OpenRC as long as you don't remove that. Yes, you need to follow the Wiki as it is a more up to date resource. It mostly requires some configuration to enable the services you want to start on boot. The kernel changes and grub aren't too much work. Also, you can use the / key to search for something like FANOTIFY (without the CONFIG_) in the kernel menuconfig.

No, you can still boot into OpenRC as long as you don't remove that. Yes, you need to follow the Wiki as it is a more up to date resource. It mostly requires some configuration to enable the services you want to start on boot. The kernel changes and grub aren't too much work. Also, you can use the / key to search for something like FANOTIFY (without the CONFIG_) in the kernel menuconfig.

I really appreciate all of your help with this. It turned out that the package that was hanging up libsoup seemed to be libgweather, I had to remove it and anything that depended on it, now I have been able to complete an update to gnome 3.8. An emerge world update is finishing now. So now I think I am just left with really wrapping my head around this systemd stuff.
The messages for gnome-settings-daemon-3.8.4 say...

Code:

* gnome-settings-daemon needs Systemd to be *running* for working
* properly. Please follow the this guide to migrate:
* http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Systemd

So, at this point, I have removed udev and installed systemd, openrc 0.12 is still installed also. If I simply want to move forward booting as I have been, with openrc, what more do I need to do? It looks like Gnome 3.8.4 wants systemd. Does using systemd require replacing openrc or can they be used alongside each other? I assume at the very least I need to deal with the fact that at this point I have no udev.

I just read through the wiki article and that documentation there looks reasonably easy to follow. I'm still a little unclear about the relationship between openrc and systemd though. Thanks again for your help.